<VV> cam gear removal

[tony.underwood at cox.net]

---- Bryan Blackwell <bryan at skiblack.com> wrote: 
> On Mar 26, 2008, at 4:37 PM, mark bobolz wrote:
> 
> >  I bought a new cam and had a Otto parts gear put on it years ago.  
> > I never got the engine to run (have no idea why). So here is the  
> > question, how do I get the new gear off the cam?
> 
> I've been told that you split the lock ring and press the gear off,  
> heat might be a good idea.
> 



For what it's worth:  

I've removed stock gears from cams by heating up an electric range burner, standing the cam, gear down of course, on the burner and waiting a short while for it to heat up and the cam usually will slip right out of the gear, no problems, no scoring, no galling.   Try to make sure the gear is heated equally, including the center where the bore is, obviously while attempting to make sure the end of the cam doesn't rest against a red heater element coil.  This ad-hoc method has worked for me nicely...   

 In fact, the gear bore will look good and suggest that by reversing the process you could reuse the gear via the same method.   Pressing a gear onto and off of a cam *will* stress the aluminum and make it questionable at best for reusing it without additional measures to keep it tight.    

This is just MY own experience...  YMMV.     

I have switched a couple of gears around like this, so far so good.    BUT, that's just me, with my own stuff.    

If you don't intend to reuse the gear, all caveats are moot, but if you *want* to experiment and reuse a gear, this is probably the way to do it, via heating the gear enough to swell it and allow the cam to slip out without damage to the gear bore.


tony..